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Site & climate · Site GIS

Map and layers

Pick a basemap, turn public data layers on and off, click any point for its facts, and generate contours and a slope map.

The Layers section of the panel sets what the map shows. Your choices are saved with the site.

Basemaps #

Pick one at the top of Layers:

  • Aerial: aerial imagery. Zoomed in close, a sharper aerial loads over it. That can take a while; the map says Loading the sharper aerial… until it's in.
  • USGS topo: the USGS topographic map.
  • Streets: a street map.

Map layers #

Tick a layer to show it. Hover a layer for a short note on where its data comes from.

  • Site boundary: the outline you drew, imported or picked.
  • Buildable area: what your setbacks leave. Set them under Buildable area.
  • Measurements: the distances and areas you kept.
  • Streets & labels: road lines and street names, drawn over any basemap.
  • FEMA flood zones: shaded flood zones and base flood elevation lines. Zoom in to see them.
  • County & city lines: county and city boundaries, with their names.
  • Wetlands: the National Wetlands Inventory. Zoom in to see them.
  • Terrain shading: hillshade from the USGS elevation model.
  • Slope: percent slope for the site. See Slope map.
  • Contours: contour lines for the site. See Contours.
  • Soils: USDA soil map units, labeled by symbol. See Soils.
  • Historic places: National Register listings. See Historic places.
  • Parcels (your county's URL): your county's parcel lines. It stays off until you load a county layer. See Parcels from your county.

Contours, slope, soils and historic shapes aren't saved with the site. When you reopen a site with Soils or Historic places on, they load again by themselves. Contours and the slope map need the elevations fetched again (see below).

Click the map for a point's facts #

Click anywhere on the map. A popup shows that point's coordinates, ground elevation, FEMA flood zone (with what the zone means), the base flood elevation where FEMA publishes one, and the city, county and state.

If the site has no pin yet, your first click also drops the site pin there.

To look up facts for the site itself and keep them with it, use Look up site facts. See Site facts.

Contours #

Contours are generated from the USGS 3D Elevation Program for the site's boundary, or for the map view when there's no boundary yet.

  1. Under Terrain, pick an Interval (in feet) and Index every (which line is drawn heavier).
  2. Click Generate contours.

The line under the buttons gives the number of lines, the elevation range and the size of the elevation cells. Hover an index contour on the map for its elevation.

Change the interval or the index line any time: the contours redraw from the elevations already fetched. Click Regenerate after you move or redraw the boundary.

Contours aren't saved. After you reopen a site, click Generate contours again.

Slope map #

Under Terrain, tick Slope map. It shades percent slope from the same elevations, in four classes: 0–5, 5–15, 15–25 and over 25 percent. If the elevations haven't been fetched yet, ticking it fetches them.

While it's on, a table shows the area and share of the site in each class, plus the area steeper than 15% and steeper than 25%. Inside a boundary, the table covers the boundary; without one, the whole contour area. The table is kept with the site, with the date it was made.